Conflict is my business - and business is booming. The past 10 years have seen a Scottish independence referendum, Brexit, Trump, Covid’s fallout, culture wars, Ukraine, Gaza… ‘What next?’ you might ask as we ponder the future of conflict.
I work for Cyrenians Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution (SCCR), a national initiative marking its 10th anniversary this month. The conflict SCCR handles isn’t the global strife we see dominating the news headlines, but the kind we find much closer to home.
SCCR was set up to reduce the number of young Scots who become homeless each year due to relationship breakdown within families. Since 2014 we’ve worked across all 32 of Scotland’s local authorities to share best practice in resolving conflicts at home via high-quality evidence-led products including online and in-person training events and digital resources. Why? Relationship breakdown caused by family blow-ups is the primary cause driving youth homelessness.
First, the good news. SCCR has contributed to a wave of change in Scotland where we’ve moved away from the stigma associated with asking for help towards a culture where parents and carers feel encouraged to seek support. When we started, 6,000 young people per year in Scotland were presenting as homeless. Today, it’s closer to 5,000.
If we want to further reduce that figure by 2034, we need to reckon with the changing nature of conflict.
When SCCR began, we provided advice on what you might call the perennials of family conflict: money, drugs, schoolwork, and not feeling respected.
Today, though, we’re aware of new kinds of family flashpoints. It’s here that we see some crossover with the global conflicts mentioned earlier. Doomscrolling amplifies the anxiety of the young people, parents and carers who do it, which can’t help but feed into already fraught households.
Remaining in the online world, we know of parents and carers disturbed to hear young people echo toxic influencers. Some young people feel enraged by parents and carers who don’t share their sense of urgency over climate change. There are parents and carers uncertain how to respond to a young person who is neurodiverse or exploring their gender identity.
The common factor is a generation gap, with many young people feeling their parents and carers’ generation have deprived them of the opportunities that they took for granted at their age, such as looking forward to owning a home one day.
New causes of conflict should lead to new methods of conflict resolution. Collaboration has always been a cornerstone of our work, and we want to explore with partners ways in which we can evolve fresh approaches and remain relevant in 2024 and beyond.
Recently, we’ve been approaching conflict resolution by way of bolstering families’ wellbeing, the logic running if people feel happier and healthier they’ll be less likely to fall out with loved ones. New SCCR digital resources dedicated to exploring emotional health will be available on our website soon.
The future has a habit of surprising us but we can be certain conflict will continue to shape family life. Can Scotland reduce those youth homelessness figures? That’s an argument worth having.
Colin Waters is Digital Media and Content Manager for Cyrenians Scottish Centre for Conflict Resolution
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